While Avery did his part in his crusade to help bring the struggle into the mainstream, there were others in the hockey community who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him on that matter. Don and Todd Reynolds of Uptown Hockey sports agency voiced their disagreement with Avery’s stance on the matter and created a firestorm of comments launched against them for their highly insensitive take on things.

When the Reynolds’ made their feelings known on marriage equality, it was obvious they were doing so without taking into account how their public take on the matter might affect their ability to conduct business in the NHL. After all, if you’re a player working with them and you disagree with their thoughts or don’t care for how they’ve brought a heap of negative attention to you via proxy, that’s a big problem.

It was apparently a big enough problem for impending Minnesota Wild free agent Andrew Brunette as, according to Michael Russo of The Star Tribune, fired Uptown Hockey from representing him and hired Don Baizley as his new agent.

We won’t go into the whole sordid tale again, but we will say this. Good on ya, Bruno. I personally did not think it was possible to respect Andrew Brunette anymore than I already did, but this move makes it clear I was wrong. A bold move by a good man.

A bold move for sure and one that puts the heat back on the Reynolds’ at Uptown Hockey about how to conduct business and to learn how to do things in a more modern and progressive era. After all, Avery’s take on things and his activism to seek out equal rights and more normalized treatment for all people is a good thing. It’s a very good thing and Avery is using his position to put more heat on the league and others around it do more to help out as he told the New York Post’s Larry Brooks.

“The support I received from the Garden, Mr. [James] Dolan, Glen [Rangers general manager Sather] and [president of MSG Sports] Scott O’Neil meant everything to me, but it was a little disappointing not to have heard from anyone connected with the league,” Avery said.

“It would be great for the NHL to take the lead among professional sports leagues in terms of social equality and justice and be out front and progressive regarding issues like this.”

Avery’s right. Other sports and certainly other industries aren’t doing nearly as much as he or even the New York Rangers have done about this subject. Given the response by hockey fans around the world by Avery and now Brunette’s actions, joining in and supporting such causes is a good move. After all, this is about people treating each other like human beings and not like second-class citizens. Seeing hockey players, who are often shown to be cement heads, become more active for social causes like this one is a great thing to see.

Seeing the Reynolds’ and Uptown Hockey suffer because of their lack of compassion provides a healthy amount of schadenfreude for a lot of people.